Why Modern Survival Blog?
March 25, 2010, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
The Modern Survival Blog is just one survival blog of the many excellent survival preparedness related blogs on the web today.
The reason I am doing this comes from a combination of life events that have led me to this point. Having worked various careers within ‘the system’ since the early ’80′s, I am presently and recently working outside the system and have a bit of time to dedicate to keeping up this blog.
Why a survival blog? Good question. It really just happened naturally. Of my many interests, the survival topic is one that I have gravitated to, and fits with my concerns of the world we live in today.
I would say that I first realized something wasn’t quite right in the economy back during 2005 – 2006 when real estate prices were just crazy and through the roof. It was so obvious to me that peoples paychecks could not, and were not, keeping up with the skyrocketing prices of home real estate. Something had to give. Everyone seemingly could qualify and get a loan, even with no money down.
This was the time when I really started digging for clues beyond just the main stream news media. I was amazed at what I was learning and seeing about the world around us. The more I dug, the more concerned I became about the fragile nature of the system we live in. How so many systems have been tweaked, leveraged, and maximized to accommodate and enable the modern lifestyle that many enjoy.
I could see how a disruption, or disruptions in any of the various distribution chains could result in severe consequences. So many (the vast majority) of people just assume that these systems will never fail us and never even think about the consequences and preparedness.
Having lived and worked most of my life near or within major population centers, the system of dependencies were obvious to me, as they are necessary to support the population of tens of thousands, up to millions of people living in small centers.
I do imagine though, that many of those that live in outlying rural areas are better prepared generally, and have a different mindset than those in the city or suburbs. However, about half the world population lives in urban areas / cities.
Another contributing factor in my life has been my experience with today’s typical corporate machine that has been pressuring and expecting their workers to work more, do more, produce more, and even give their ‘life’ to the company so as to improve the next quarterly earnings report. I believe this is pretty widespread, at least here in the US. When this pressure gets bad enough, one asks themselves what is more important, trading all of my time for the good of the corporate machine and the paycheck? Or is there another way that leaves more time for me and my family.
It has amazed me how many people seemingly accept and even embrace the notion of trading their entire life and time, for the fatter paycheck, which is simply leveraged into higher loans for bigger homes and fancier cars. It is all an illusion. Most of them do not own those things, and in fact are in debt to their eyeballs while playing the charade that they are upper crust.
Maybe it’s just my present stage of life and I am looking at things differently than I once did. Who knows. In any event, my interest in the Internet as an excellent medium of information exchange, coupled with my present disgust with much of what is going on in the world today, has inspired me to start a blog. I knew that it would be more or less a survival oriented blog, but probably not the type that is mostly focused on the extremes of survival.
But instead I thought of using the phrase, ‘modern survival‘, which would ideally orient more towards topics that are practical and usable today, and topics that can be used or related to today’s living and things we can do today to prepare for hard times that may come tomorrow (although hard times are certainly here today for many).
As this blog evolves, I hope that I (and my wife is contributing too) can provide a range of topics and categories that will hopefully provide some of you with useful information or inspire an alternative approach while we make our way through preparations to survive hard times, if they come.
Ken, I am so glad that Lauren is doing better. I was up last night thinking about how fortunate and very uncommon it is for someone to be with their soulmate and how sad it was that you and Lauren ‘soulmates’ are going through this. I personally hope one day to be with my soulmate. It is wonderful to know that there is going to be a happy ending to this and both of you will be back together healthy and happy again.
I was also up late thinking about how growing up whenever there was a natural or man-made disaster how I did not personally have any type of comfort or consultation to explain to me the magnitude of what was happening. I could see for example when it rained heavily the water reaching the front door and filling up the house and drowning. My father did not offer much reassurance or solutions to this fear. It got me to wondering about just how many children out there are going through similar fears of not knowing what ‘could happen’, especially with all the recent intense calamities. So I felt that I could offer some ideas how to help make kids and families feel better during these hard times.
Children and the way they feel are often forgotten during these perilous times, kids of all ages are quite perceptive to what is going on but not actually understanding it fully. The horrified adults’ reactions and expressions to these disasters both on the news and from those around them can be extremely taxing on a young person’s nerves. What can you as a parent, guardian, relative, or an adult that a child looks up to both literally and figuratively do to help alleviate children’s anxieties about all the terrible events that seem to continue one after the other with drastic intensity?
- Younger people want to know if something ‘bad’ happens that there is some sort of plan there to handle it. Children need to know that they and those around them can recover from something and that they and their families can survive. Have something a ‘plan’ layed out for just in case.
- Always include children in the family plan for preparing for any type of disaster. Kids love to be included and feel what they think actually matters. A simple question to a child of, “What do you think?”, or “How can we make this better?” can do wonders to make a kid feel part of everything. Besides this, a lot of children are very bright and their opinions can be of great use.
- Most children will respond well to honesty to what could happen as long as there is a solution to the problem. Talking something over with a child in great detail can lessen much unreasonable fear. Many parents will bury their own heads in the sand and not discuss the dangers of say an earthquake. If and when then is an earthquake the child may not know what to do when the shaking starts and freeze up. The parent or adult’s own fear of overly scaring some child could be the difference between that child coming home or not after a disaster such as an earthquake.
- Try to always watch disturbing images of disasters that the media will usually overdramatize with children and talk over with them why everyone feels so awful. In other words when there is great sadness shown on the television explain to the child why you think this is happening, or just talk over what those going through these horrid times are feeling.
- Never dismiss a child’s fear as ridiculous. Fear is a horrendous, ugly real feeling that needs to be talked over and not keep bottled up to get even worse. Rational and irrational fears in children and adults alike need to be discussed. A lot of children live in fantasy worlds and when there is even a small area of devastation that occurs the child might see this as the entire world. Logical explanations can help ease unrealistic fears.
- Make sure that the school, day care facility, whenever they are staying at has some sort of disaster prepareness ready. Not only is this essential for them, the children are going to personally feel safer knowing that their own home and outside their home is a ready for some disaster to happen. Many places are not even fire ready, do not assume it is safe, do research on it.
- Have a lot of patience, understanding, and compassion for when children, especially younger ones, do not grasp what is happening with the world. Kid’s minds and senses are not fully developed and much time may be necessary to explain to them what to do when a disaster strikes. Kids need to be trained as adults where to go that is safe when something bad happens.
- It seems like every kid has some sort of security blanket that they personally depend on to feel better. Attempt to have what they need there for them when disaster strikes. This can be toy, a pet, a person, whatever will help them feel some comfort.
- Try to not ever allow any child or any memeber of the family, especially the elderly feel alone without somebody there when bad times hit. Alone can also be a helpless state of mind. Fear can drive people of all ages into their shells to hold everything in. Having someone to talk to can at least make someone feel like they are not so alone. Kids see a lot more than their parents give them credit for and don’t think for a minute that kids don’t see and feel what is going on. Just because someone is quiet does not mean that everything is fine.
- One thing that is common sense is that when enough is enough, turn off the 24/7 news coverage of some catastrophe and get away from the house. Children as adults become very fatigued after hours of watching the misery and need a break. This of course do not apply if you need emergency information on a constant basis.
- One thing that is usually not talked about with children is the financial cost of these disasters that are enormous. So often kids do not understand the value of money and that these disasters can have much impact on the economy and the family budget. Children have to know that these on going disasters might run up the cost of everything and that in the future there might not be as much money to spend on things that the kids like.
- Something that can make a child feel better and express themselves is to write down or draw the way they feel about a recent tragedy. This will always give you insight to what they are thinking. The more intensity of a drawing of course shows that the cataclysm that occurred is really bothering them badly.
- Kids like adults gossip and exaggerate stories. Children’s friends and schoolmates can make up stories that are terrifying and have only a kernel of truth behind them. This is why it is so important to be truthful to a child about what is or what is really happening.
- If a child is emotionally up to it explain to them the real consequences of people not being ready for a disaster. Many children do not fully understand death and suffering. Explaining to them that these disasters are nothing to fool around with, and when there are warnings out such as tornadoes, tsunamis, wildfires, whatever teach young people to “LISTEN” and “ACT”. Many teenagers and young adults for example think of themselves as ‘indestructible’, a fatal reoccurance that seems to be happening more and more often like that individual that was swept away on the west coast of the U.S. by the tsunami. Flood warnings are something especially ignored by those thrill seekers.
- The main thought to teach children is that the world is changing and there are going to be many more really dreadful times ahead that are going to be rough. Also that there is going to be someone there listening and helping is so all-important for the security of any child. The old song ‘Stand by me’ truly applies to all ages. People can survive and deal so much better when they have and when they know that there are people there for them no matter what when these nightmares happen.
Thank you. It is going to be a process of recovery for her. So far it includes some ups and some downs, but the ups are winning. Thanks for taking the time to comment as you do.
Hi Ken,
Thanks for taking the time to update and endlessly devote yourself to this fantastic blog. I’m not the kind of person that usually devotes my spare time to blogs, due to their risky nature of leading you through a twist of raw emotions etc, however I absolutely love your blog as its informative, and absolutely a must to read to prepare ones self for a ‘just in case’ moment.
I’m an avid reader and always coming back for more!
Keep up the great work!
From an avid Australian reader,
Andrew